Jordan Stolz had to wait a little longer than expected on Wednesday night. But when confirmation finally came, the 21-year-old American could celebrate his first Olympic gold medal – and the opening chapter of what could become one of the defining campaigns of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
Skating in the second-to-last group, Stolz powered to an Olympic record time of 1min 6.28sec in the men’s 1000 metres, using a devastating final lap to deliver in his signature event and launch his pursuit of a potential four-gold haul across these Games.
His time ultimately stood after a brief period of uncertainty triggered by a late-race judging decision that granted a reskate to Joep Wennemars – who ended Stolz’s two-year world championship reign at the distance last March – after it was ruled that the Dutch skater had been hindered earlier in the competition. The delay forced Stolz, Jenning de Boo and the rest of the field to wait nearly 15 minutes for Wennemars to skate again .
At least 90% of the packed arena wore Dutch orange and the rollicking crowd roared “Joep! Joep! Joep!” as Wennemars returned to the ice. Skating alone, he never threatened Stolz’s mark. When he crossed the line more than two seconds off the pace, Stolz could finally celebrate, gliding through a slow victory lap with the US flag held aloft before posing for photos with his longtime coach, Bob Corby.
Skating head-to-head with Dutch contender De Boo in the penultimate heat, Stolz did not threaten his own world record of 1:05.37, but comfortably lowered the Olympic mark of 1:07.18, which had stood for nearly a quarter century. His margin over De Boo – half a second – was commanding by 1000m standards, with China’s Ning Zhongyan taking bronze in 1:07.34.
“It is not like it is different from any other race,” said Stolz, who finished 14th in the 1000m and 13th in the 500m as a 17-year-old Olympic debutant in Beijing. “It is just the fact you waited the last four years to finally get here again, and you get one shot to try and battle, which I was able to do. Just [a] feeling like no other.”
Performing under the weight of dizzying expectations, Stolz responded with the same controlled, clinical skating that has defined his rise over the past three seasons. The race itself unfolded almost exactly along the blueprint that has made him dominant. Stolz opened aggressively but not recklessly, hitting the 200m split in 16.18 seconds – among the fastest early splits of the night – before settling into rhythm through 600m in 40.62.
From there, he did what he has done all winter: closed harder than almost anyone in the field. His final lap of 25.66 seconds was among the strongest of the contenders and decisive against De Boo, who led early but faded slightly over the final circuit.
De Boo’s intermediate splits underlined how narrow the margins were. The Dutchman was marginally faster early – 16.06 to 200m and 40.25 at 600m – but could not match Stolz’s closing speed, giving up more than three-tenths over the final lap alone.
The final standings reflected the depth of the field but also the clarity at the top: Stolz first in 1:06.28, De Boo second in 1:06.78, Ning third, with Poland’s Damian Żurek fourth and Wennemars fifth after the reskate.
The reskate itself added an unusual layer to an Olympic final that otherwise followed expected lines. Wennemars, initially timed at 1:07.58 and later granted another attempt under obstruction rules, failed to improve his mark on the second attempt, leaving the podium unchanged.
Wennemars cut a devastated figure afterward, saying the collision that led to the reskate had effectively ended his medal chances.
“My Olympic dream has been ripped apart. I am heartbroken, this is just horrible,” he said. “I was just racing my own line and then the Chinese guy blocked my road. I was fucked. I do not know what else to say.”
He added that being asked to return to the ice so quickly – and to skate alone rather than head-to-head – left him at a clear competitive disadvantage.
“The only way to still get a medal was to do the re-skate,” he said. “But in two days’ time nobody will be thinking about this moment, and I will still be without a medal.”
For Stolz, the win immediately established him as one of the central figures of these Games and kept alive the possibility of a medal run rarely seen in Winter Olympic history.
Stolz entered Milan targeting medals – and potentially gold – in four events: the 500m, 1000m, 1500m and the unpredictable mass start. Were he to complete the sprint treble as he did at two of the past three world championships, Stolz would become only the second American to win more than two golds at a single Winter Games – and the first since fellow speed skater Eric Heiden, whose five-gold sweep in 1980 remains one of the towering individual achievements in all of sport.
Stolz has consistently resisted those comparisons.
“I try not to think about the pressure too much,” he said earlier this week. “Once you get to the line, it’s the same thing you’ve been doing for years. Everything around you is just noise.”
The numbers behind the hype have been difficult to ignore. Stolz entered the race as the world record holder and a two-time world champion at the distance. He was unbeaten in the 1000m on the World Cup circuit this season and has dominated global sprint speed skating since 2023, winning seven of nine possible world titles at the shorter distances over that stretch.
The 1000m has historically been Dutch territory – the Netherlands had won the event at the previous three Winter Games – and the Milan field included multiple legitimate threats, including De Boo, Żurek and former Olympic champion Kjeld Nuis.
For the United States, any medal would have ended a podium drought stretching back to Vancouver 2010. Instead, Stolz delivered something larger: the first Olympic gold of what could become a defining Games.
His rise has followed a trajectory rarely seen in modern winter sport. Raised in Kewaskum, Wisconsin, he learned to skate on a backyard pond before developing at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, emerging as a teenage prodigy with near-perfect natural technique. By 20, he was world all-round champion – the youngest since Heiden.
What separates him from many champions is not just speed, but process. Stolz approaches skating like an engineering problem, obsessing over blade curvature, ice density and marginal aerodynamic gains in pursuit of what he calls “free speed”.
The Milan venue itself added early-Games uncertainty. Built as a temporary Olympic track after outdoor venue plans were scrapped, the ice surface has produced some of the fastest Olympic times on record – another variable Stolz historically treats as something to solve rather than fear.
The win now turns attention to the rest of his Olympic schedule. The 500m follows Saturday, with the 1500m next week and the mass start closing the long-track program. But Wednesday reinforced the same theme that has followed Stolz all winter: if he skates clean, he is extraordinarily difficult to beat.
“It’s hard to say you will win four gold medals, if you haven’t even won one yet,” Stolz said. “Now that I’ve won one, I know what to expect. I felt how the crowd is, the energy, the ice. I think it’s going to be good.”
